Research about United States Supreme Court rulings, which affect public school policy, has largely disregarded the fact that the Constitution makes no direct reference to education. A method is outlined that may be of use to educational policy makers as they seek to respond to these rulings. The case of "New Jersey v. T.L.O." (469 U.S., 336, 1985) is analyzed to develop the method. In this case, an implicitly held assumption backed the Court's ruling. This assumption is that the public school communities are sufficiently similar to the broader society for the purpose of deciding about the manner and extent that the Constitutional guarantees should apply to the activities of school authorities. It is argued that these constitutional principles, which are relevant to educational issues, articulate intelligibly the manner in which, and extent to which, constitutional guarantees should apply to school authorities. How certain activities for evaluation of teacher and school administrator activities should be established in accordance with constitutional principles is demonstrated. A further development of the method might extend it to other educational cases through investigation of norms of professional ethics and principles of social responsibility. A 13-item list of references is included. An appendix contains four flowcharts that illustrate constitutional arguments. (Author/SLD)